An author, painter, gardener, and one of the most popular New England poets of the late 19th century, Celia Laighton Thaxter was largely inspired by her home on the Isles of Shoals, an isolated cluster of islands off the coast of New Hampshire. Yet Thaxter was also an active participant in Boston's vibrant cultural life; her close friends included Sarah Orne Jewett, John Greenleaf Whittier, and James and Annie Fields, and she hosted a vibrant summer salon on Appledore Island that included artists Childe Hassam and William Morris Hunt as well as musicians Julius Eichberg and William Mason. Here Norma Mandel not only reveals new details about the author's life but also places her in a broader literary and cultural context, from her isolated childhood and early marriage to her embrace of the Aesthetic Movement and her fascination with spiritualism, tempered by a lifelong struggle to secure a steady income and care for a disabled child.

"More than 100 years after her death, Celia Thaxter remains one of New Hampshire's premier literary and artistic figures.... Mandel's wide knowledge of the music, art and literature of Thaxter's times; her extensive research into primary sources; her clear affinity and admiration for Thaxter herself; and, of course, the fact that Thaxter led an extraordinary life makes this an extraordinarily readable biography ... [that] pulls back the parlor drapes on a life lived fully and courageously."—Concord Monitor